Monthly Archives for June 2024.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A new whistleblower was identified in advance of Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun’s testimony today. A Renton, Washington quality assurance inspector says that the planemaker “improperly tracked and stored faulty parts, and that those parts were likely installed on airplanes including the 737 Max,.”
Furthermore, he claims that supervisors instructed him “to conceal evidence from the FAA,” and that he has faced retaliation. Boeing offered to fly the whistleblower to D.C. on a 737 MAX 9.
Basic economy matters as a way to differentiate corporate travelers (who generally pay more) from leisure customers (who are price sensitive). The old methods of Saturday night stay and 14-day advance purchase no longer hold.
But customers aren’t as stupid as airlines assume, or maybe even used to be. They compare the offerings of airlines – at the same price, nearly everyone offered better value than JetBlue. Certainly Delta – which has free wifi, too – offered better value in both New York and Boston than JetBlue’s basic fares. That hurts JetBlue, which wins only when customers go out of their way to choose them over competitors.
Increasingly, airline customers have been willing to spend more money for a better experience. It used to be that people booked on schedule and price and were willing to take whatever they had to in order to get where they’re going as long as things operated reasonably on time. That’s no longer the case, yet even premium airline products haven’t adapted, at least domestically.
Michael Kascsak, a former talent acquisition executive with Google, Capital One, Bank of America, and PayPal, was offered a job at Expedia and says he was told that the offer was pulled so that they could hire a black female instead.
Are they figuring that very few will keep track of whether it’s a designated week to earn points? That’s certainly an interesting experiment in marketing – to see whether the announced partnership and linking gets most of the juice, or whether there’s significant uplift in spend during weeks members can earn 100 points.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Air New Zealand’s CEO Greg Foran may have violated his flight attendant union contract scope clause by taking over cabin crew duties to serve drinks to passengers on a flight from Auckland to Tokyo. (I kid, I kid.)
He was trying to make up for having the flight diverted – to pick him up, along with a New Zealand trade delegation of 30 business leaders, government officials, and media.
Pro-Trump activist and former Libertarian Heather Mullins complained about her treatment flying American Airlines first class, reporting that a flight attendant skipped over her when taking drink orders because of her MAGA hat.
Last summer, the FAA outlined an intention to ban JSX and other scheduled public charter operators, largely because they offer a popular, quality product that competitors do not like.
Now the FAA says that it will move forward with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would – at least in some cases – prevent public charter operators from selling scheduled flights from private terminals, using co-pilots with fewer than 1,500 flying hours.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
